Black and White Twins Layton and Kaydon Richardson
It’s official. Twins born with different skin colors are not “one in a million” genetic miracles. Razib did the calculations and we’re collecting the data.
First, there was the Hodgson-Horder twin girls, then the Singerl twins last week, and now the Richardson boys, Layton and Kaydon who were born black and white, respectively. Their mother, Kerry Richardson, says that they were both born white, but over time, Layton has gotten darker while Kaydon has gotten lighter. Kerry Richardson is of Nigerian-English heritage and the father of the boys is white.
I think it’s time they started a club so the families can lend support to one another. Being treated as one-in-a-million genetic freaks can’t be doing the children any good.
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29 opinions for Black and White Twins Layton and Kaydon Richardson
Genetics and Health » Twins with Different Skin Color Genes
Oct 28, 2006 at 9:02 pm
[…] Update: Another pair of black and white twins have been identified - the Richardson twin boys of Britain. […]
michele mckinney
Nov 7, 2006 at 1:14 am
I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT ALL OF THESE FAMILIES SHOULD NOT BE TREATED LIKE FREAKS.THIS IS SO AMAZING THAT THIS HAPPENED. FRANKLY IM JEALOUS IT WASN’T ME.EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET USED TO THIS BECAUSE EVENTUALLY WE WILL ALL BE OF A MIXED RACE THEN MAYBE THEIR WON’T BE ANY PREJUDICE.GOOD LUCK TO THE FAMILIES WITH THIR NEW BUNDLES OF JOY AND A VERY VERY BIG CONGRATS TO THEM.GOD BLES!
Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD
Nov 7, 2006 at 12:46 pm
michelle: Thanks for the comment. You could be right!
jules
Jan 2, 2007 at 2:00 am
Actually the children are the same race, just different colors…lets get it right. The mother and father need to be more assertive in ensuring that the media does not make this a circus. Enjoy the double blessing and don’t take it so freely.
Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD
Jan 4, 2007 at 12:19 am
jules: Couldn’t agree with you more. Thanks for the comment!
cynthia
Jan 8, 2007 at 9:39 am
I am an African-American woman of light-brown complexion, and my husband is African-American of very dark complexion. (We both have some Caucasion ancestry several generations back.) Our eldest daughter has medium brown skin, but our younger daughter is very fair-skinned (much lighter than both of us). I am tired of questions and comments about the differences of our children’s skin tones. I’m now pregnant with our third. Frankly, I hope he turns out dark chocolate like my husband. Whatever his color, he will be just as beautiful and beloved as our other two. We have to understand that the majority of so-called “black folks” in America are mixture of African and European. Some “white folks” as well!
Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD
Jan 8, 2007 at 9:44 am
Cynthia: Thank you for sharing your story with us! Congratulations on your pregnancy and all the best to your beautiful family. :)
Rhonda
Feb 11, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I think a child is a blessing in itself, a set of twins just doubles that blessing. I don’t really see what all the fuss is about however. Fair skinned black people have been passing for white people for years, even decades. The fact that we have fraternal twins to begin with put a hush on the expectation of the babies looking alike. And with bi-racial couples we know their gene pool(pull) will be more broad,likely producing offspring of a wider array of physical characteristics.
Hsien Hsien Lei, PhD
Feb 12, 2007 at 10:56 am
Rhonda: Thank you for your comment! No argument from me here. :)
Elise p
Mar 5, 2007 at 3:37 pm
im doing twin studies for school and i just want to let you know that your twins have made a big impac in my project. so i guess what im saying is thanks.
Elizabeth
Mar 7, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Hi - My husband and I are both more or less fair-skinned people of eastern European Jewish extraction (although one of us is a genetic mystery a couple of generations back), but our twins, who are 4 months old, are so strikingly different in skin tone that my relatives and friends easily remember who’s who based on the fact that the “lighter” one happens to have a name starting with “L” and the “darker” one happens to have a name starting with “D”. (No, we didn’t do that on purpose — we weren’t even sure of their skin tones at birth because they were jaundiced and one of them looked very red, as many infants do.) Now that they are getting bigger, they really look like different ethnicities, though both are basically caucasian (one is very peaches and cream with light eyes, while the other is very distinctly olive with gigantic brown eyes). So I’m not a bit surprised that mixed race couples can have such starkly different-looking twins! Best of luck to these parents and their adorable babies!!
Arnold Smith
Jul 4, 2007 at 5:41 pm
My wife and I also have black & white twins. They’re almost 10 now.
Personally, we were just so glad that they were so healthy, we didn’t care if they were orange and purple.
Our family didn’t care. Our friends didn’t care.
They were just happy that we had twins.
These couple that go parading their “miracle” twins are around like they are a sideshow act should all get a slap. Are they not getting enough attention from people closer to them?
Just be glad the children are healthy and enjoy them.
All this media hype of the miracle black & white twins is a pantload.
Tiffiny C.
Jul 7, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hi!! Your boys are sooo handsome, I have a set of twins ( girls) that are also black and white. They looked different from birth and their personality’s also as diferent as day and night. I just want to say how wonderful it is to see more twins just as different so maybe one day my girls can see that thier not so different. Good luck and God Bless!!!
akbar
Jul 13, 2007 at 1:53 am
Its not a big deal to explain. this is the result of negative behavior. one child has melanin with a soul..possibly , while the other is clearly a mutation like all other white people. its a sad thing to give birth to a white child.
Jamie310
Jul 29, 2007 at 3:43 am
ALL living creature have souls! How are white people a mutation? I have a son who’s bi-racial (black and white). There is nothing about him that came from so-called “negative behavior.” EVERY person is created equal and from Gods will.
<p>Congrats on all of the twins, they are all soo beautiful. Looking at them I wonder what my future mulatto child(ren) will look like, or if they will even resemble my son.</p>
ade
Aug 6, 2007 at 3:31 pm
i also have b&w twins they are now 24- dont worry if the media discover you have no money they’ll sooon leave you alone!
ade
Aug 6, 2007 at 3:53 pm
there are also a set of b&w twins in NZ -i used to communicate with their mum -would love to know if she is still out there and how things are with her and her boys ! sorry cant remember your name but you lived in Dunedin!
E. Mingo
Feb 17, 2008 at 4:56 pm
My parents separted before I started kindergarten. My father re-married, my mother did not. My father’s second wife is not of the same race as my mother. As a result, I have eight brothers and sisters. We are five of mixed “race” and four of one “race”. We are grown, now, and live in areas of the United States and Canada, from upstate New York to southern California, and from Manitoba to Ontario. We look like one another, and we don’t. My son looks like my brother, with different colored skin. You know what? We don’t care. If we don’t, no one else should. I think it’s beautiful, and I believe people should learn the lesson, grow up, and move on.
Sheralyn
Mar 13, 2008 at 5:32 am
Those twins are SO precious…I’d give my eye teeth to have twins like that. Black - Beautiful. White - Beautiful. Simple as that! God bless them always.
jo
Apr 17, 2008 at 4:24 am
my fraternal twins’ physical appearance are so different, kids at their class did not even realized they were twins. my husband is 1/4 chinese 3/4 filipino, i am pure filipino. our boy is so chinese small eyes and yellow skin and our daughter is so filipino medium skin with round eyes.
fred
May 14, 2008 at 1:30 pm
i think that all of the familys are lucky to have lovly childern
Samuel Wong
May 14, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Simply find the sharing here intersesting. I wonder isn’t there some information center to consolidate this apparently ‘common’ phenomena of having black and white twin. I think it at least shows information carried in human body is sufficient to give birth to different skin color babies in just next generation.
Alison Spooner
Jun 11, 2008 at 11:46 am
I have a set of black and white twins and I am expecting twins again, we have alot of interest on us at the moment as to weather the next two will be the same as the first, I don’t think the media do turn it into a circus it is very interesting and I don’t know why it happens but would like to know.
Pamela Ganey
Jul 17, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I also have twins. One is black and one is white. They are 5 years old now and I have always been treated like it is “impossible” that they are actually twins. When they were babies I was very sensitive about the subject. I decided to get DNA testing just to make sure nothing crazy happened at the hospital. Now I have gotten comfortable with the way things are but my twins are now questioning it. My daughter (Legacee) wants to know why she has brown skin and not white like mommy and Logan. I think twins are special anyway but they have definitely blessed me in a way I could never have imagined!
Darnell
Jul 18, 2008 at 6:17 am
It is possible for a so called black couple to create a an albino baby but it is not possible for a so called white couple to create a baby with a soul as in solar engery or black matter or melanin. A black couple does not have to be mixed racially in order to create an albino child. It is impossilbe for a white couple to create a baby with a soul/melanin. All color and freqencies are in the color black. White is the absence of all freqencies and color and soul/melanin. And by the way, There are some of the darkest people in the world with blue eyes. There was a clan of so called black people indeginous to Ireland with blue eyes, I met three personally in Detroit. Eye doctors will not even admit to them that their eyes are blue even though their eyes are as blue as the sky. St. Patrick was made famous by driving them from Ireland, that is why they celebrate ST. Patrick’s Day. It is no coinsedence that dark skinned people are hated all over the world in every society. We are the ones with a soul not just a spirit. You ever heard the saying, white people have no soul? It is not about dancing skills.
Darnell Mooris
Jul 18, 2008 at 6:19 am
It is possible for a so called black couple to create a an albino baby but it is not possible for a so called white couple to create a baby with a soul as in solar engery or black matter or melanin. A black couple does not have to be mixed racially in order to create an albino child. It is impossilbe for a white couple to create a baby with a soul/melanin. All color and freqencies are in the color black. White is the absence of all freqencies and color and soul/melanin. And by the way, There are some of the darkest people in the world with blue eyes. There was a clan of so called black people indeginous to Ireland with blue eyes, I met three personally in Detroit. Eye doctors will not even admit to them that their eyes are blue even though their eyes are as blue as the sky. St. Patrick was made famous by driving them from Ireland, that is why they celebrate ST. Patrick’s Day. It is no coinsedence that dark skinned people are hated all over the world in every society. We are the ones with a soul not just a spirit. You ever heard the saying, white people have no soul? It is not about dancing skills.
Lyrea
Jul 18, 2008 at 7:02 am
This is the proof that we as human race actually are brothers- beyond the physical limitation such as colors. We all are one, and we will be one someday in the future.
What interest me to comment is the fact that suddenly “everyone” have different-colored twins. Isn’t this supposed to be unusual? Why there are more than half of posters who have different-colored twin respond to a web story? The chance is slim, so I know some of the posters above are lying- whoever you are. Get a life.
Maria
Jul 18, 2008 at 10:31 am
Darnell, it seems to me that your racism comes from ignorance. Please allow me to teach you what you apparently did not learn in school.
Light (as you call it white) is made up off all color frequencies. You can see this when light is put through a prism and it gives off a rainbow because each color has a difference frequency and when bent by the prism, each color will bend at its respective angle.
When an object absorbs all these frequencies, you see the object as black. You can understand this when you are in a dark room. The reason why you cannot see is because no frequencies of light reach your eyes.
Melanin is a substance your skin has to block out the harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. Black people have more melanin and white people do not. This is why white people should protect themselves more from the sun — because more harmful ultraviolet rays reach their skin cells. This has nothing to do with having a soul. Either way please get educated before you spew out ignorance. And, by the way, don’t think I assume you are black. You may just be a white person pretending to be black so you can cause a racial divide amongst the readers. Please don’t think we are as ignorant as you.
In conclusion, a person’s color is only one of countless traits carried in your DNA so do not place so much importance in it. Those who do surely do not understand the infinite characteristics we humans have. The most important is our souls, which we all have.
Stephanie
Jul 18, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I hardly call it a miracle, but a blessing indeed! Although rare, but not surprising, having twins with different amounts of melanin is simply genetics. I believe the Bible which states in Acts 17:26 that from one “blood” God created all of the nations. It was the racist evolutionists that came up with the “race” theory so that they could divide people with false superiority. There’s only one race - the human race!
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